


Warmth

by gingerswag



Series: Wander Home [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, Middle Ages, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Slavery, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:40:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29664660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerswag/pseuds/gingerswag
Summary: After the fifth time he wanders outside without a coat and shoes on, Cas sits him down in the evening and puts the items directly in his lap.“These are yours,” he tells Dean. “They belong to you, now. You don’t need my permission to wear them. I’m not going to take them away from you. I’m not going to get mad at you if you put them on when I’m not around. In fact, I want you to do that. I always want you to put them on when you’re going outside, whether I’m around to tell you or not. Ok?”************Cas has given Dean his first coat. Dean is having a hard time believing his luck.Just a short little oneshot for my verse Wander Home, with a previously abused Dean appreciating his new soft warm coat and newfound safety :)
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Wander Home [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2147427
Comments: 53
Kudos: 174
Collections: Destiel ✦ The Road To Freedom





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> I'm like halfway through the next chapter of Market Day, the Wander Home interlude, but I wrote this little very simple oneshot in like 40 minutes. Hope y'all enjoy, though literally nothing happens in it. <3

After the fifth time he wanders outside without a coat and shoes on, Cas sits him down in the evening and puts the items directly in his lap.

They aren’t the ones he’d been given the first day. Cas is taking his father’s coat and boots back, he explains, because they’re big, and Cas is bigger than Dean. He’ll wear his father’s old coat and boots, and Dean will wear Cas’s smaller ones. It’s these that he puts in Dean’s lap, and tells him he’s to wear from now on.

“These are yours,” he tells Dean. “They belong to you, now. You don’t need my permission to wear them. I’m not going to take them away from you. I’m not going to get mad at you if you put them on when I’m not around. In fact, I want you to do that. I always want you to put them on when you’re going outside, whether I’m around to tell you or not. Ok?”

Dean had nodded, urgently, because he hadn’t meant to be bad and hadn’t meant to disobey, and even though Cas didn’t seem mad that didn’t mean he couldn’t shift and snap at any second.

He hadn’t, though. He’d just nodded like they’d come to some mutual agreement, and had left, abruptly, without another word, as he often does.

It had taken him a while after that to process what he’d said, what Cas’s words actually meant for him, too focused on agreeing and placating possible anger while Cas was there to think about it. It’s only later, after the dishes were washed and Cas had gone to bed, that he starts to understand what that conversation had meant.

He sits up in his own company, on top of the blankets he’d begun to think of as his. The fire roars next to him, and he soaks in the warmth, the quiet atmosphere, the gentle feeling of being alone in the pleasant nighttime.

He pulls the jacket out from where it has been tucked under the stool besides him, and lets it drop quietly into his lap.

For a few moments, he just stares at it, content.

It’s pretty. Deep brown and clean like water, the fur shines slightly when he moves it, reflecting the light in places off its darkened coat.

Back at John’s he would have been lucky to even see a coat like this, to even be able to take in with his own eyes something so nice and comforting to look at. Just staring at it makes him feel warmer.

His self from a few weeks ago would have been too timid to stare at it for too long, knowing that it isn’t meant for him, knowing that whoever such a fine and sturdy thing did belong to might easily take offense at something like Dean daring to covet their possession.

Not anymore. He’s not scared of looking at it, now. Cas had given it to him. He’d _given_ it to him, not just to wear once or twice because he’s nice, but to keep, to _keep,_ to be looked at and looked at and looked at as much as Dean pleases. _He’s_ the lucky bastard with such a fine, pretty, warm coat, and Dean lets out a happy sigh at the thought.

It’s his. It’s really really _his._

Dean can hardly believe it.

He can look at it, and he can touch it as much as he wants.

So he does.

He reaches out with his hand and strokes the fur, first with one finger, then with his whole hand.

It’s soft like moonlight, soft like nothing Dean has felt before, and suddenly he thinks wealthy women must be idiots, to be after silk and satin and velvet, while something as soft as this exists.

Dean has the impulse to feel the softness against his cheek, and he gives in, because he can, because the coat is his, it’s _his,_ Cas said so, he really did.

He lifts the coat with his hands, and notes consciously for the first time how heavy it is. And he loves that, he loves the weight in his hands, because the weight is there to protect him, to keep him safe from the cold.

Bringing the coat up to press against his cheek, Dean hums at the pleasant feel of it. He pushes his face further into the fur and breathes in.

It smells like Cas. Dean finds that he doesn’t mind.

When he drops the coat from his face, he’s smiling.

 _Mine,_ he thinks, giddy. _It’s really mine._

He’s never had a coat before. Never had anything to keep him warm, when he was sent outside.

Cas said he could wear it even when he’s not around.

Does that mean he can wear it right now?

He decides to risk it, because Cas is so nice to him. He thinks it would probably be ok.

As soon as it’s on, Dean ties it closed, and snuggles deep into the softness.

He starts to get hot almost immediately, because he’s inside and next to a fire and is wearing a long sleeve tunic and wasn’t cold to begin with.

It makes Dean happy all the same. It makes Dean happy to overheat, to feel how good the jacket is at containing his body heat, to think about how he’ll never have to freeze in misery and fright in the sharp cold wind again.

_Never never never never never never never._

Cas wants him to be warm. So he will be warm.

Of course. Of course Cas could still take it away, if he’s bad, even though he said he wouldn’t. That doesn’t mean anything, Dean knows from experience, and it’s not like Cas knows how bad he can be, yet.

But.

But he gave Dean furs to sleep in at night, and lets him lie him right by the fire. He sent Dean back inside every time he caught him outside without the coat and boots, told him over and over that he’s going to freeze, as if he thinks it’s a bad thing.

When he asked Dean to stay…

When he asked Dean to stay.

He promised.

He promised not to send Dean out to the snow without warm clothing. He promised Dean would always have a warm place to sleep.

Dean knows how little promises are worth, especially when made to people like him.

But. Cas hasn’t broken it yet.

It’s only been a few days. But he’s kept his promise, has had him put warm clothes on each time they worked in the snow, has let Dean sleep warm by the fire each night, even though he makes so many mistakes every day.

John would have sent him outside, for the night, at least once, because of all the mistakes he’s been making.

He would have been left to freeze, left to huddle behind a barrel to try to break the worst of the wind, been left to hope Sam would be able to sneak away and unlock the outdoor pantry for him to hide in, if Dean was brave enough and really thought he might die.

Dean curls farther into the coat at the thought, hugging himself. He stares at the fire like it knows something he doesn’t.

 _You’re not with John anymore,_ he whispers to himself in his head. Then, because he doesn’t really believe it, he whispers it out loud to make it real.

“You’re not with John anymore.”

He keeps his voice so quiet that it’s almost covered by the low sounds of the crackling fire.

He still hunches over, and pulls the coat’s hood up, grateful for how he can nearly hide his entire scrunched up body within the jacket, even though it fits better than the last.

Saying the words feels like defiance, and that scares him. It feels like the man is going to appear out of nowhere to drag him back to where he belongs.

But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t, and as the seconds tick by and Dean stays safe and warm, he starts to believe that his own words are true.

“You’re not with John anymore,” he says again, for good measure.

He speaks just as quietly, but he believes himself a little more this time.

He isn’t with John anymore. He’s with Cas, now. Cas, who is nice to him, nice to him like Sam was.

Sam never agreed with John when he sent Dean out to the cold. He never laughed at him or told him he had it coming, like Dean always feared he might one day do.

But he didn’t.

Maybe Cas wouldn’t do that either.

It’s far too much to hope that he will never make Cas cross, that he’ll never have to be punished. Dean doesn’t even bother entertaining the thought, because it’s as outlandish as stories about angels.

But maybe. Maybe.

Is it too outlandish to hope that Cas wouldn’t send him outside for the night?

All the nights he’s spent shivering, turning blue, waiting in misery as the excruciatingly long hours ticked by, waiting, begging, for sunlight to come, so he would at last be allowed back indoors. The nights he’s spent trying not to cry for fear that his tears would freeze in his eyes, the nights he’s spent curled freezing in a hopeless ball, promising god anything and everything if he’d just make the wind a tiny bit less sharp, make the flurries fall a tiny bit slower, make the nook or cranny he’d shoved himself into just a tiny bit deeper so he could move out of sight of the storm.

He wants those nights to be over.

He wants that all to be over. So badly. So so badly.

Dean curls his hands up into the coat’s sleeves, and wonders how long he could survive in the cold, if he were allowed to wear a coat like this.

_Maybe you won’t have to find out._

Maybe.

Dean hardly dares to hope for something that he wants so much.

It would be so nice to sleep indoors, for all the rest of his life.

It would be so nice to stay warm, to be allowed to be warm forever.

The fire crackles in front of him, and Dean feels sleep pulling at his consciousness.

He lays down, on top of the blankets instead of underneath them, because he’s still wearing the fur coat.

He doesn’t want to take it off.

It’s hot. He’s hot. But to take it off…right now, some deep childish part of him just feels like he couldn’t bear it.

 _It’s a good sign that he’s given it to you,_ Dean thinks vaguely. _It means he likes you. It means he wants you to be warm._

Dean wants to be warm too.

It’s nice, to be warm, to sleep warm by the fire snuggled in a coat. It’s nice. Hot, but Dean doesn’t care about that.

He likes wearing the coat. It makes him feel like Cas likes him. It makes him remember that Cas cares about whether or not he’s cold.

Dean closes his eyes.

The orange light of the fire seeps softly through his eyelids, dancing in a gentle pattern that makes Dean feel like he’s already asleep.

 _As long as you’re wearing the coat, nothing can hurt you,_ he tells himself.

He knows it isn’t true. But he likes to pretend, sometimes.

It would be nice if it were true, he thinks. In some ways, it feels like it could be.

_No one can hit you, no one can choke you, no one can make you freeze. It’s magic. Like the enchanted shields in the stories Sam would read._

His breathing starts to even out.

_The coat protects you, like Cas protects you. You’ll never be cold, never be cold again._

He falls asleep feeling safe, for the first time that he can remember.

When he wakes in the morning, Cas smiles at him, and doesn’t make him take the coat off all day.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!!! <3 Please leave a comment and kudos if you enjoyed.
> 
> Come give me prompts or just talk to me at https://ao3gingerswag.tumblr.com/ :)
> 
> Also please look at this beautiful art by tumblr user iinstanttrashcollection of the oneshot baking bread!!!!!! beautiful beautiful omg!!!!!!!!!<3 <3
> 
> https://ao3gingerswag.tumblr.com/post/643960590788919296/ao3gingerswag-s-new-gift-an-image-from-baking


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